Time Flies....

First play time

The aftermath of night feeds.....

First outing to a coffee shop.....where else ;-)

Smiling at Daddy first thing in the morning

Hello All,

Wow, I cannot believe our little boy has been home for 2 weeks tomorrow. I can now see why people say you wake up and they're 18! SLOW DOWN please....I want to take in and enjoy every single minute with beautiful baby James!!!

Things really are better than I ever can imagine and I love being Mummy more than anything in the World. I love our little family and we have a wonderful life. I cannot express how grateful we are that God has blessed us with this outcome.

James has settled well. He feeds every 4 hours at night and 3 hours in the day. We are still having to 'top up' his feeds with a bottle after he has breast fed but it seems to be working as he put on 8oz this week. Yipee.

He is a very happy little baby and loves watching....well anything! He's really nosey and I can't think where he got that from!

Anyway, thank you for checking in, we love to share this journey with you. Please continue to pray that many other CDH families can bring their beautiful babies home or at least find peace in the blessing of such special children....we can learn so much from each and every one, the angels most of all.

We are so happy and hope you enjoy these pics. xxx

Suprise

Hello Everyone...

My deepest apologies for the delay in 'blogging' my phone has been down since the weekend so I haven't been able to access email to update my brother. You guys have been so great in following the blog and giving us such wonderful support and we are so grateful. We certainly haven't forgotten you!!

This has been possibly the craziest and most wonderful week of our lives.

Following the previous posting we returned to the high dependency to find that James had not been returned onto the Cpap ventilator. The nurses had decided to only have it there for 'rescue' in case he gets tired. James rose to the challenge and although he needed a few ours the following day it was bye bye Cpap FOREVER by Friday.

Then...he started thinking that milk really is yummy and demanding more and more of it. Everything they put through his NG tube into his little tummy he was eating! So they upped him by 3mls every 3 hours until he reached full feeds at 6am on Sunday morning. Throughout the night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was attempting to establish breast feeding which we FINALLY mastered at 3am on Sunday. James was so happy to be feeding well. Because he was clearly tolerating his feeds, by 9am Sunday morning we had said goodbye to the NG tube and hello to 'on demand breast feeding'. Things really do move quickly once you're on the home stretch.

They decided to let us 'room in' with James on the Monday night so we could establish feeding as would be achieved at home and to get us used to the lack of monitors. We loved this! We were with our baby boy with NO tubes and no one watching our every move. What a moment!

On Tuesday however we had a little bump in the road. Overnight James had managed to loose 100grams so they needed to monitor his weight a little closer. They decided that if he put on sufficient weight overnight that he could.........................wait for it.................go HOME!!! So as you can imagine we fed, fed and fed our baby boy, so much so that he did 10 poo's in a day.

Throughout the day on Tuesday and Wednesday we were taught how to bath, give mediation, recusitate and monitor baby James. Then there was the weigh in and.................. he had gained 45 grams. Thats all he needed and was DISCHARGED.

After 22 days in Neonatal Intensive Care,
3 Days in High Dependancy,
2 days in Special Care,
2 days - rooming in,
a total of 29 days on Hospital out baby has come home!

We are so proud that James is such a fighter. God has given us a miracle and we will be thankful for him every day. The staff at St Georges' have been wonderful and we will remain indebted to them always - Thank you!

We have made some great friends throughout this journey and are so grateful to all of you for your thoughts and prayers - they certainly got us through this roller coaster.

Thank you to all of you and I promise to post photo's and and update tomorrow. As you can imagine though we are totally shattered.

So delighted to sign off as a family at home..........

Mike, Beth and Baby James Michael Reeve